GOOD MORNING. Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day.
1. In our lead story this morning, Niall O’Connor reports on an appeal by the leader of the garda representative body for training standards to be maintained as garda trainees will leave their studies in Templemore a month early. A majority are on their way to police the streets of Dublin over the Christmas period as part of plans to boost visibility of officers on patrol in the wake of last month’s riots. Brendan O’Connor, President of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), was speaking as 151 trainees will next week leave Templemore Garda College a month ahead of the completion of their training.
2. Ireland’s fiscal watchdog has slammed what it described as an “everything now” approach in Budget 2024, accusing the government of poorly budgeting its expenditure. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has released its latest report, in which it analyses the government’s spending plans for next year. The Council is not impressed with the Budget that was announced in October — particularly in the area of health.
3. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has used a rarely exercised power, urging members of the UN Security Council to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire as the conflict in Gaza continues. His letter to the council’s 15 members said Gaza’s humanitarian system was at risk of collapse after two months of war that has created “appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma”. He invoked Article 99 which allows the secretary-general to inform the Security Council of matters they believe threaten international peace and security. It came as Israeli troops battled Hamas militants in the heart of southern Gaza’s main city where Israel believes a suspected mastermind of the October 7 attacks is believed to be hiding.
4. American Republican senators blocked the advance of tens of billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine and Israel last night.
President Joe Biden has called the move “stunning” and dangerous, and an attempt to “kneecap” Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
US Congress failed to pass a $110 billion dollar (€102 billion) package of wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel as well as other national security priorities, a move Senate Republicans had threatened to do all week.
Las Vegas shooting
5. Three people are dead after a shooting at a US university, with police saying the suspect was also deceased. Students and members of the public had been told to avoid the area after reports of an active shooter on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a short distance from the Las Vegas Strip.
5. Justice Minister Helen McEntee will tell an Oireachtas Committee today that the events of the Dublin riots were the “exploitation of an appalling incident to simply wreak havoc”. Pressure has been mounting on McEntee and Garda Commissioner Drew Harris in the wake of the riots, although that eased after the Fine Gael TD survived a confidence motion in the Dáil on Tuesday.
6. Irish government officials have sought to play down claims in a report by a British newspaper that there are diplomatic tensions between Ireland and the British governments over a leak at Sellafield nuclear site. The Irish environmental watchdog told The Journal that “there is a negligible risk to the Irish public from the leak”, while the government says there are “no significant matters that should cause concern for Ireland”. It follows a Guardian article which claimed that there were concerns of a worsening leak from a “huge silo of radioactive waste” that the newspaper said “could pose a risk to the public”.
6. Students at TU Dublin’s Grangegorman campus are “fearful” after an increase in “anti-social behaviour” in recent weeks, according to the Students’ Union. In the most recent incident, around a dozen gardaí responded to what a garda spokesperson described as an “altercation” within the Grangegorman campus. The Students’ Union president Brian Jordan described the incident as “very, very extreme antisocial behaviour in one of the higher floors in central quad” in Grangegorman.
8. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray has been announced as the overall An Post Irish Book of the Year 2023. The book was among six titles competing for the accolade, all of which were category winners at the 2023 An Post Irish Book Awards. Murray’s book, which was also shortlisted for The Booker Prize, was unveiled as the winning title during a one-hour special television show aired on RTÉ One. Described in The Guardian as a “brilliantly funny, deeply sad portrait of an Irish family in crisis”, the south Dublin author’s latest work has attracted an array of unanimously positive reviews on publication. #
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